I'd still like to see someone mention a true thin client that can do a
decent job at video. Citrix and Wyse have tricks that stream the bits
down to Media player on embedded XP. Nothing is rendered on the server,
and guess what, you have to manage that OS.
The more the client does the fatter it becomes. I know Ivar mentioned
that the Sun Ray hardware is capable of so much more, but that so much
more requires so much more local code.
The power required to render full screen on the server and the bandwidth
to send it down isn't anything that would be cost effective today. And
what's your full screen? 640x480 or 1920x1200? Huge difference in the
amount of horsepower required to shoot those pixels down the screen.
Scanning and printing: Scanning works fine from both Solaris and Linux
if you have a scanner that supports SANE. Printing works well not only
with the 'Nixes but also from Windows.
Regarding scanning and USB PDA's up to windows, neither of those are in
the RDP spec. Citrix has this today for Win32 based Citrix clients (but
on ActivSync, no palm) which means you are already running a PC to run
the Citrix client. Linux support for TWAIN and ActiveSync is supposed
to be forth coming from Citrix. So these are not Sun Ray issues per se,
you'd have the same exact problems on a WinCE or Linux based thin
client, or from any RDP connection.
Sun Ray has upstream and downstream audio. In fact it was the very
first thin client to have upstream audio, not to mention VoIP grade
upstream audio. RDP does not support upstream audio, but I guess that's
the Sun Ray's fault. Citrix came out with upstream audio in PS3 (Called
Digital Dictation), but I've not heard of any VoIP Softphone vendors who
are raving about it.
Thin Clients wrote:
Thanks for all the interesting answers. There appear to be asome
extra complexity vs a citirx/wyse only solution, but perhaps it pays
off in the easier management.
The things that still worry me are:
- video - for instructional computer based learning etc
- scanning and printing. I suppose that ethernet attached ones might
work here. Any one know of any and how to make them work with the SunRay
- usb to atleast sync outlook/phone lists.
- sound input/output
(The reason why I asked about comparisons to the web browser world is
the advent of things like the Nokia 770 and browsers on phones. Some
percentage of the user base will be travelling an will want to use
these devices. (Significantly smaller than a tadpole). So I forsee a
mixed environment.)
From a service provider perspective, does anyone know of a provider
using citirx or rdp? (gotopc?)
On 6/20/06, *Kevin Burtch* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
On 6/20/06, Blaster <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
> This is really false advertising when Sun and others claim
this. Remember,
Considering you'll need many different models of Wyse thin clients at
the same time, you'll have to purchase their management server
software, and you'll have to coordinate the patching of the thin
clients.
With the Sun Ray model, if they didn't tell you the firmware was being
upgraded, you'd never even know. It is that automatic and seamless. It
also happens in about a second. I've tried to demonstate it to
people,
and found it's nearly impossible, as they always blink or look away to
ask a question when it happens.
Then they want me to do it again. I have to explain that it won't
happen again until Sun finds a reason to release another upgrade
(which is pretty rare). Of course I could have forced a downgrade and
allowed it to re-upgrade, but that is completely counter to the point
I was/am trying to make.
> Bill Gates said no one will ever need more than 640K of memory
either.
The first-generation Sun Ray 1 DTUs I have at home do everything the
newest Sun Ray models do, except the old units don't have a serial
port or DVI (don't need either).
Now the Wyse systems have more than a dozen models for a reason.
How many Wyse thin clients from more than 3 years ago can run the
newest release of EmbeddedXP (or whatever it's called this week) which
is required to run some software?
How many from the '90s can?
> Sun Rays do have firmware that must be upgraded every time you
patch the
> SRSS software. The fact that this happens mostly seamlessly
sort of hides
> this, but it is there.
True, but the oldest Sun Ray models can still run the newest Sun
Ray firmware.
As noted above, this is most definitely *not* true of the Wyse thin
clients. They have an obsolescence plan just like PCs do. "Oh, you
wanna run this new app? You gotta replace your thin clients!"
> At some point, the first generation of Sun Rays will become
obsolete as
> technology advances and pushes them past their design
limits. At that
> point, Sun will stop supporting them and they will become
doorstops like
> everything else technology eventually becomes.
I highly doubt that, as that would be disproving their own marketing
push for these devices. The fact that they can (truthfully) claim that
the oldest Sun Ray models run everything the newest ones can is quite
a statement and the entire reason for making everything server-side.
If they suddenly said they would no longer support the EOLed models,
they would no longer be able to make that claim and the competition
would jump all over it.
The one point where this could sort-of be true is with new devices the
new models have that the old ones don't.
Some newer models have serial ports. That did not make Sun drop
support for models that didn't have 'em.
> The biggest draw back I see to the Sun Rays is their apparent
inability to
> do full screen full motion video. That alone puts a pretty big
limit on
> their capabilities and will forever keep them in the "dull
office machine"
> market.
True, but they aren't marketed for use in arcades, they're marketed
for use in businesses. The majority of employees of most businesses
don't watch video for a living.
Have you seen a Wyse do full-screen/full-motion video?
> I would also like to know why these things still sell for $249
list. When
> you can open up the Sunday paper and get a Dell PC with a 2.5Ghz
processor,
> 256MB RAM, DVD drive and a monitor for $229. The Dell has about
10 times
> the amount of physical materials and complexity as the Sun
Ray. These
> things should be selling for no more than your average cable modem.
A better comparison would be the price of a Wyse.
Otherwise, you're completely missing the entire point of a
thin-client
deployment.
If I remember correctly, the bottom-end price of a Wyse is around the
same (or slightly higher), but you won't be able to use the bottom-end
model unless you're running some very basic stuff.
The company I work for looked into them and compared the prices of the
bottom end Wyse with a Sun Ray deployment (that included the server)
before the SR2 was announced. With the T2000 servers, the price/desk
wasn't that much different and the increased security and ease of
maintenance were the selling points for the Sun Ray model.
Then the SR2 and T1000 servers were announced... dropping the
price/desktop considerably.
None of this takes into account the fact that we would have had to go
with higher-than-bottom-end Wyse models, making the Sun Ray
configuration even more attractive.
Also, keep in mind that these are stateless, unlike Wyse.
If someone spills their cup of coffee into the thin client, it gets
hit by a stray bullet, or otherwise meets its demise, all you do is
plug in another one and your software is *still running*, because it
runs on the server, not on the thin client.
In the Wyse model, every $300+ thin client needs a $100 UPS (or
whatever they go for now).
-Kevin
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